God and Science: The Origins of Life Paradox by Mark Mullen

Religion and science both claim to own the secrets that unlock the origins of the universe. But try as it might, science cannot escape God’s design of the universe. In fact, scientists continue to prove the existence of God inadvertently. For example, scientists tell us that at the beginning of time the entire universe was a tiny fraction of the size of the period that ends this sentence. Then one day for no apparent reason this little dot exploded into our universe. Time, space, light, planets, and stars suddenly appeared. Scientists have no explanation for this – it just happened. But Christians know what happened, the Bible tells them about the creation of the universe and man himself.

The Bible contains answers to many scientific questions. But sometimes individual interpretations of the Bible get in the way of God’s message. Find out how in this book as both science and the Bible are examined as we search for a higher understanding of the meaning of life.

Targeted Age Group:: teen and older

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Far too many talking heads, (politicians, the media, scientist) accept and promote Darwin’s theories of evolution as an absolute truth. I cannot accept that our relatives are descendants of two non-living cells that came together and formed life. Forget about being a descendant of the apes. According to Darwin, all life stems from an unknown, unplanned biochemical, molecular reaction. I cannot accept the life is an accident theory.

I set out to write this book to show readers that science is a tool God provides man to help us understand the importance of God’s role in our world. It’s not the tool we need to question. It’s the choice of tools and how man uses them.

Book Sample
It’s the next two theories of Darwin that bring the most criticism and skepticism. He believed that living species self-divided into many separate species creating the limitless variety of life forms that now exist on Earth. But Darwin did not stop there. Darwin believed that all life descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the beetles, the lions and plants, man and woman, all related, all from the first living organism. Darwin presumed the development of life came from non-life – a purely uncoordinated biological and chemical response to the environment.

It’s the later of the two theories – common ancestor – that’s the most disturbing to religion. In “The Descent of Man,” Darwin claims that humans and apes shared a common ancestor. His logic is fairly simple. The composition of man is like other mammals: skeleton, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels all work the same way as in a monkey or seal. Darwin also notes that, “Monkeys suffered also from apoplexy, inflammation of the bowels, and cataract in the eye… Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors: they will also, as I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with pleasure.”

Further, Darwin cites the embryonic development of man as indistinguishable from other animals with vertebrate as more evidence that man and ape are related. But perhaps the most astonishing reason given by Darwin to connect man with apes was his belief that there was “no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties.” This was based on his observations that monkeys solve problems, are curious, imitate, laugh, can use tools, and possess the ability to remember. So, man and ape must come from a common ancestor.
Darwin gave many reasons how man and ape are related, but he misses the one fundamental question that begs to be answered. It’s a question that goes right to the heart of his natural selection theory.

Remember, Darwin believed natural selection to be a process that gives a species an advantage over competitors to survive. What was the need for apes to evolve into man? What advantage did they need? Apes, chimpanzees, and monkeys exist today unchanged, living and behaving as they did millions of years ago. They did not become extinct; they didn’t die when man came to be. What happened to natural selection and survival of the fittest? Apes have proved to be evolutionary fit just the way they are.

Both science and Darwin give us reason to challenge the common ancestor theory. Darwin believed natural selection to be the process of improving a species’ survival in a specific environment by creating traits that favored life. A favorable trait does not include creating a new species. If that were the way natural selection works, a species’ DNA code would need to be altered to create a new species. But science tells us that a living organism’s DNA cannot naturally produce a new, or different, species. DNA contains a species’ unique biological instructions for reproduction of offspring. For example, a German Shepard dog’s DNA has instructions for producing a German Shepard dog. A German Shepard dog could not pass along DNA to produce a cat. Likewise, an ape could not pass along DNA that creates a man. Darwin believed that over time a common – but unknown ape-like – ancestor modified its DNA and created both the ape and man. Unfortunately for Darwin, time does not make impossible things possible.